Corruption is expected to remain vibrant in Thailand this year, as people are concerned about the state rice pledging scheme, the 350-billion-baht water management budget and the government's 2.2-trillion-baht infrastructure spending plan over the next seven years.
Sauwanee Thairungroj, president of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC), said 48% of 2,400 survey respondents in the business, public and government sectors expect corruption in Thailand will become more severe this year due mainly to the government's massive spending plans.
The latest UTCC survey found Thailand's Corruption Situation Index slightly improved to 3.9 points in December from 3.5 points in the previous survey last June.
However, graft remains a serious problem as the points were below five out of 10.
The survey indicated tea money still persisted during the previous fiscal year, at 30-35% of the government's spending, with a potential leakage of as much as 330 billion baht.
UTCC has conducted the survey since 1999, when tea money averaged about 10% of the budget, but the rate has risen to 30% in the past three or four years.
Utit Buasri, director of the National Anti-Corruption Commission's Bureau of Policy and Strategy, said his office received 7,955 graft complaints last year. This year, complaints are expected to rise to 10,000.
Thanavath Phonvichai, UTCC's vice-president for research, said Thailand is failing on this issue, as its rating fell below five and the survey showed many people remain concerned about corruption in government programmes, particularly rice pledging, water management and future infrastructure investment.
The 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by the Berlin-based Transparency International had Thailand sliding to 88th place out of 176 countries.
The global anti-corruption organisation changed its methodology for the ranking, previously scoring on a scale from zero (highly corrupt) to 10 (highly clean), now scoring from zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (highly clean).
Thailand scored 37 out of 100, sharing the same score as Malawi, Morocco, Suriname, Swaziland and Zambia.
Thailand ranked 80th among 183 countries in the 2011 index with a score of 3.4.
Denmark, Finland and New Zealand tied for first place with scores of 90, helped by strong access to information.